56 quotes
This is just shit. It's happening. No blame. Happening and on the rise it would appear.
She worked for the villain and believed in the villain, but she ain’t the villain.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
But all of us know that’s not what is supposed to be in that hole.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
You’ve got to fight them, but you don’t try to exterminate them.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
God... your book is beautiful!
I can't help it. I was born a miscarriage. I had so many insults I died. I was born dead. I can't help it.... I'm tired.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
Kerouac had lots of class — stumbling drunk in the end, but read those last books. He never blames anybody else; he always blames himself.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
You can't trust the quality any more...
Trip of a Lifetime (1999)
Later, hiding in the latrine from the black boys, I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
And nobody had more class than Melville.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
I didn’t know what to think and she didn’t either, but I was glad she came up to me.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
There were other books that were being kept, real books. In those real books is the real accounting of your life.
The Paris Review interview (1994)
Nurse Ratched: If Mr. McMurphy doesn't want to take his medication orally, I'm sure we can arrange that he can have it some other way.
You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn't like a con-con-vertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you're so b-big and so tough! Well, I'm not big and tough.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
LSD lets you in on something. When you're tripping, the idea of race disappears; the idea of sex disappears; you don't even know what species you are sometimes. And I don't know of anybody who hasn't come back from that being more humane, more thoughtful, more understanding.
Trip of a Lifetime (1999)
I watched and tried to figure out what he would have done. I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn't have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)